Summary
Contents
How do we understand drug use? How are drugs related to our social worlds? How should drug use be understood, approached and dealt with? Insightful and illuminating, this book successfully discusses drugs in social contexts. In an elegant manner, the authors bring together their different theoretical and practical backgrounds, offering a comprehensive and interdisciplinary introduction that opens up a wide scientific understanding moving beyond cultural myths and presuppositions. Powerful and engaging, this book discusses main questions within the field of psychoactive drugs research, such as: Why do people take drugs? How do we understand moral panics? What is the relationship between drugs and violence? How do people's social positions influence their individual involvement in drug use? This is an invaluable reference source for students on criminology, sociology and social sciences programmes, as well as students and drug service practitioners in social work, social policy and nursing.
Prevalence and Trends in Illicit Drug Use
Prevalence and Trends in Illicit Drug Use
In behavioural or medical terms prevalence refers to the extent to which something, like a disease or in this case drug use, occurs within a given population. For the purpose of this chapter the populations under consideration will be both worldwide and national with a focus on illicit substances. Trends are patterns that take place over time. When we look at drug use prevalence and trends we can see how much drug use is taking place, what changes in drug use have occurred and are occurring, where these changes are occurring and in relation to which substances.
Historical Context
Drug use for recreational pleasure involving products from a multitude of naturally occurring substances ...
